


Wild Nightingale

by landofspices



Category: Robin Hood (BBC 2006)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Forced Marriage, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rape Recovery, Sexual Abuse, Stockholm Syndrome, the non-con elements are NOT Guy/Marian
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-06-03 17:18:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6619513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/landofspices/pseuds/landofspices
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A forced marriage AU beginning with alterations to the end of 2.6, "For England...!". </p><p>Sheriff Vaisey decides that he's sick of his most useful — that is, his most effectively subjugated — assistant, Guy of Gisborne, falling to pieces whenever Marian of Knighton is on the negotiating table, threatened, or in any way part of the political game. He can't afford a Gisborne who's a loose cannon, so what better solution than to marry them, ASAP? Guy, he reasons, will surfeit on what he's waited so long for, and grow sick of her soon enough. </p><p>He underestimates Marian's intelligence, compassion, and powers of perception. She is <i>not</i> happy about being forced into marriage, but living in close proximity to Guy will reveal a lot, and change how season two pans out.</p><p>[tw: abusive Vaisey/Guy; Guy is not fully cognisant of the abuse.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_La douce voix du louseignol sauvage_  
_Qu’oi nuit et jour cointoier et tentir_  
_M’adoucist si le cuer et rassouage_  
_Qu’or ai talent que chant pour esbaudir_

—Trouvère Chanson

 

_prologue:_

This death, now — he gives it gladly, like a gift he has been holding back. Adieu, my Lord Winchester: there is a tenderness in killing, done like this, when you know it must be done, and have thought it over as you rode in the smoky grey dusk with the horse warm between your legs. There is a sort of love in killing, when you truly wish to do it. Usually Guy does not; it is a duty, one of many, some of them easy, many wearisome, a few repellent. He is rarely sickened by blood: he has learnt to tolerate its enormous, awe-inspiring gush from other men, even from women and occasionally children, but Vaisey says, “You don’t really see the beauty of it, do you, Gisborne? You’re too crude, too crude.”

All the same, Guy has his duties. The exercise and equipping of the guard; the overseeing of tax collection, of tongue-cutting, of the preliminary arrangements for public hangings; the figures, the accounts — some domestic, and some public, and some as secret as the grave — since Vaisey trusts him more than anyone else, though still only a little. The duties of the bedchamber. The unending, humiliating pursuit of Robin Hood. Why should anyone imagine he takes pleasure in that? He dreams often of his captivity, and Robin’s fire-bright sword coming swiftly towards his face, his skin. It happens more slowly, when he is only dreaming, and he has time to plead with Robin, to lie, to say he is sorry about the fire, about King Richard. He begs Robin. Usually they are alone, without Robin’s man there to hold him back, but sometimes Vaisey is holding the sword, and sometimes he is holding Guy in his arms, and Guy is not bound to any tree at all. He wakes shuddering, his face soaked with tears.

No, he does not see the beauty, as a rule. It is a matter of being Vaisey’s man, Vaisey’s boy, of being somewhere near the heart of the maze that is Vaisey: of being Vaisey’s, body and soul. He can refuse nothing. He can never falter. “I know you better than you know yourself,” Vaisey said once, only a few weeks ago, quite softly, in his ear. Then also, his hands stroked Guy’s face, as a woman touches a suffering thing near the end of its life, with gentleness and certainty.

Today, though — today, a sweet precision in guiding the blade home. He takes Winchester’s life away as one moment becomes another: breath stops, eyes dull; a soul is gone, unshriven.

He thinks, _At last, at last._

Vaisey says, “A wedding in the morning, I think. I won’t have this palaver again, Guy.” He doesn’t even look at Marian. He and Guy are standing in the road beside Winchester’s body. Vaisey's eyes are still, dark waters. He picks up Guy’s right hand between both of his and holds it in a tight grip. “Let’s see you get it out of your system.”

Guy cannot understand why Marian says nothing, and says nothing, and says nothing, all this long time. He is giddy; his hand trembles in Vaisey’s and he feels absurdly close to crying. _We are to be wed_ , he thinks. _I have waited for her, waited for this —_

Marian says — and her voice is flawless, cold, like a voice fashioned from ice — “I will not marry.”

He has not yet dared to look at her, for he remembers, he cannot forget, her face in the church at Locksley; how she looked, lit with anger, just about to strike him. Involuntarily, he raises his free hand and touches the tiny scar on his cheek where she broke his skin. He forces himself to turn his head, swallowing a pain in his throat. She is white, in the faint light they have to see by, and he does not know if it is fear or fury. _But I can make her do my will, when we are married_ , he thinks, and then the thought breaks off in his mind and dangles like a broken thread.

“Let us see whether I can persuade you to change your mind,” Vaisey says. “I shall ride back to Nottingham Castle in the coach with you, and tell you, in detail, everything that will happen if you do not speak your vows. And none of it will happen to you, Lady Marian, so take no foolish comfort in entertaining the notion of self-slaughter, or even of simple endurance until an eventual end. You _will_ be married to Gisborne at Terce tomorrow, be assured of that.” He smiles at her.

Guy is suddenly afraid, violently afraid, and he clutches at Vaisey’s hands, which are still holding his. Still, it is here that he seeks comfort, though he knows it will not be given. Vaisey’s thumb is caressing his fingers, slipping between them and forcing them apart: he is pushing the joints too much, and it’s uncomfortable, although the pain is not acute.

“I’ve got you a bride, Guy,” he whispers, his lips close to Guy’s ear. “I’m giving her to you. But not you to her, of course, that would be absurd, wouldn’t it?”

Guy nods, he can do nothing else.

“You will lead my horse home, won’t you, Guy?” There is no need for these words to be whispered, but they are. It is as if anything they have to say to each other is too horrible to risk being overheard. Guy nods again, feeling the blood rise in his cheeks. He thinks, _I have always wanted this, but this way? Not this way. But it is Marian, he will give me Marian —_

He looks at her again as Vaisey drops his hand to climb into the coach. Their eyes meet, and he sees something that looks like hatred.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wedding.
> 
> [tw: self harm; rape (not very graphic but there is a male/male rape scene in this); abuse in both relationships (N.B. including Guy's past abusive behaviour towards Marian).]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy 21st, bby! <3

_the sweet voice:_

Gentle and intolerable bells ring out her last hours. Impossibly, she can hear joy in the sound; she has always been quick to find it, and her heart piteous, loving. She will not let fall any tear, not tonight. Marian’s eyes cannot be permitted to betray such acceptance. In her shift she has walked until she is exhausted, around and around her chamber, forcing her weary body on. There must be some way. She sifts her thoughts, eager as a bird. Her feet ache against the stone.

Matins, and grey light welling up in the East. Never has she been more sorrowful at the coming of morning. Even the first dawn after her mother’s death, waking anew to find it was no bitter fancy; that no mother would come again to her chamber door with a light step, or even reprove her, as she had so often resented, and at the last would have given all her nobility to hear again —

Birds cackling soft and careless, out in the air. Marian has seen them caged in the Sheriff’s chamber, but now that it is almost too late for anything, as her thoughts spin, sick and giddy, around the pictures he drew for her in the hushed, close coach — _a child’s hand lopped off, its mother witnessing and knowing the why of the matter, knowing that you could have prevented all this_ — she wonders why she left them there, why she did nothing in their service.

Never to hear the wedding Mass that joins her to Robin as his wife; never to bear his children and to teach them all the shadowed paths and green-specked hollows of Sherwood; never to ride and shoot and swim in sun-warmed water with their sons and daughters, never to feast together as man and wife in the glowing hall, side-by-side, safe again, restored again, King Richard home again. No, she will not endure it. A sound wrenches from her mouth, tearless grief scraping itself out. Her pity for Guy of Gisborne has run dry, her soul lies on the floor in a robe of ashes. She pities herself. She pities this strange woman locked in a chamber of stone, this woman with the fast-beating heart and itching, desperate eyes. Robin must come. But Robin does not know. The sky is pooling with violet, its beauty reproaching her like the sadness in a ballad that says, _why do you find me lovely, I am hurting you._

Prime. Oh, dear Mother of God, how the bells cut through Marian’s flesh. They are cold as a silver buckle in December.

She thinks, _I will not, I will not, I will not. Not even if he kills my father, not even if he hurts a child, kills one, kills twenty, kills them all._ She dashes her hand against the stone wall and her knuckles split and bleed. She watches with tremendous detachment, standing near the window now in the soft, brightening light of the morning. There is almost no pain at all, only the narrow ribbon of her blood snaking across the back of her hand as if it has a mind of its own.

Marian kneels, prays.

Perhaps a long time passes, or only a little: her prayers unfold from her mind and her mouth to fill all the time she has left alone, the last time that is truly hers. Light spills into her chamber, the brute strength of daylight at last becoming undeniable and blinding. There are no words left for how much the day appalls her.

They knock at her chamber door, which is the strangest courtesy to give a prisoner, is it not? The women are come to array her. She is praying to the Virgin Martyrs for intercession, to St Agatha, to St Agnes, to St Cecilia, to St Genevieve. As they carry in the water for her washing, she still half-believes it will not happen.

_of the wild nightingale:_

Vaisey takes Guy to his bed, and he is oddly merciful. His hands are not brutal, their movements are soft; they stretch and tickle and tease. This time no blood is spilt. He kisses Guy’s sweat-damp cheek afterwards and pulls out of him; sits up, breathing heavily; admires. Guy feels the hands rove across his skin again, touching his buttocks and spreading them to examine, then letting go; then cupping his softened prick and rubbing at the cloying, wet discomfort where Guy has spent himself uncontrollably over his own skin. He has soiled his discarded shirt and the sheet beneath, and usually this does not happen.

Guy keeps his eyes closed. He is not as good as Vaisey at guessing what will be said before it is spoken, but tonight he knows: Vaisey will ask if he was thinking of Marian, the leper. If it were any other insult — but he cannot hear it without his father’s ruined face appearing before him, looking up at him from an open grave with disappointment written in every feature as he said, _be a man_. It catches him by the throat like a wolf, every time. If his father could see him now, lying still, as Vaisey reproves him in a tone half-laughing, but really angry all the while: to be grown, and come to this.

At last he is dismissed into the night, and shivering, he stands naked in his chamber and washes his skin all over with cold water. It is mortification, purification, a desirable sort of suffering. There is only one candle. He does not even have to see himself. It is Guy’s custom to drink wine before his visits to Vaisey’s rooms, only there was no time for it this evening, and now he is reluctant to risk a thick head tomorrow. It feels different to be awake like this, aware, hearing every little sound.

He is to be wed. It is a prospect so exquisite and bewildering that he does not dare to lie down and sleep, although he is exhausted.

Guy crouches by the hearth, where the fire has sunk low. He can’t find the strength to add another log: all he can do is think of Marian, Vaisey, Hood. Will Vaisey let it happen? Is it a punishment for them both, for her the fear, and for him the disappointment? He finds himself touching the little scar she gave him once again. Strange to say, but it became a talisman in the long, furious sorrow afterwards: _she gave me nothing back, but she did give me this._

He still has the ring, and it’s the only one he possesses, so there is no choice but to use it again. Shame builds in him like a pyre. He wants to think she would not have done the same if she had known it was not something he bought, or stole, or was given by Sheriff Vaisey to bind her in marriage; if she had known it was Ghislaine’s ring, she would have cared for it more. The argument convinces him not at all, for nobody in the world cares for Ghislaine any more but him, and perhaps Isabella if she is still living. He catches himself thinking, _does Robin remember her, my mother? He did not like her, no one liked us, but she bound his knee once when he was seven, cleaned it and bound it; I remember the deep cut, how lavishly it bled._ His eyes sting with old bitterness, but he swallows and masters himself. No more girlish tears alone, when he is a husband. He cannot believe that Hood will let him wed Marian; surely there will be another chaotic surprise, an uproar, and Marian snatched away. He will not let himself feel joy, he will not.

When the fire is altogether dead, he gets into his bed and lies still there. He’s too cold to sleep, and his ankles ache, his arse stings, his nipples hurt from Vaisey’s play. Yet he cannot lock out hope, it steals in through some little door like a master thief, but a thief who brings gold instead of taking it away: a thief who puts the bag of gold down carefully on your table, gentles your dog’s head, does nothing but kindnesses.

_sweetens and soothes my heart:_

Terce.

This time, Guy knows he is wearing the wrong clothes, but there has been no time to get anything else. She does not come in a coach, and she has no home. He has burnt her nest to ash. _I got you out_ , he has wanted to say to her for months, _I got your father out; it’s not the same because I saved your father_.

She looks solemn as a postulant. There is no lace, but how fine her face is without ornaments. He could not eat when he woke, and the sight of her is like the feeling of a ship rising on the swelling tide: dizzying, then ecstatic, as your body meets and knows the forces that act upon it. He tries to match his own bearing to hers, to greet her soberly with a nod, but his lips tremble. It cannot be real. He cannot be here.

His eyes flicker around the castle chapel again and again. Robin Hood, Robin Hood, where are you? Not here, it seems. He meets Vaisey’s gaze, and drops his own. There is singing in his ears, although no one is singing in the small chapel; Marian’s father, the only guest apart from Vaisey, is gaunt and hunched and silent.

Marian looks into Guy’s face and sees nothing she recognises. He is an inventory of details to her — _white cheeks, aquiline nose, long black lashes like a woman’s, dark hair, cowardice, lovely blue eyes, a tendency to cruelty_ — and they will not become a husband, try she never so hard to piece them together. Pain is cleaving her, cutting her down the middle; it is the wreck of all hope, the paring away of what her life ought to have become, one day. _The King was going to come back_ , she thinks, listening to church Latin scurry past like rats’ feet. _I was going to marry Robin, and bear first the sons, then the daughters._

She remembers the day Guy burned Knighton, the reek and roar of flame as they departed. The chamber where she was born and where her mother died: it is gone forever, and so is the chamber of her girlhood, where she sang her most foolish ditties, and was not always industrious as she ought to have been, and lay with her mother stroking her hair when she bled for the first time and it pained her.

She has always pitied him, and it has led her by winding paths to this, a speaking of vows which will take from her all that she had left: which was only her hope, and her work. They are shearing her brightness, and she will be naked, cold, very cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very willing to discuss other perspectives on characters etc., but will just ask that for this particular chapter (since the update is a birthday gift one), could we keep it friendly? Thank you! :)
> 
> [eta, 25/04/16: gratuitous negative comments will be deleted.]


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wedding breakfast. :)

_chirping and singing:_

Gloria in excelsis Deo. She feels all dried up now, like the pith of a woman. Nearly wed to him, nearly lost. When he gives her the ring, he doesn’t put it on her finger. She takes it from him, puts it on for herself as slowly as she can. It doesn't mean a thing, of course. Te Deum laudeamus. Her heart, she thinks, is sure to break now, or now, or now.

Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus. She’s heard it sung and never thought about the words, but now they cut her like a whip. What they’re doing to her is unholy: and in God’s house, too. Outside, such a gay morning. The earth jests with her. 

And then at last, there is silence. He does not kiss her, not at all. This creature new-born: her husband, looking at her with uncertain eyes. All through their vows they have not touched, although it is the custom. _I never wanted to do the common thing_ , she thinks, _and now? Oh, less than ever_. She sees him look at the Sheriff as if for permission, and he puts out his hand to take hers. It’s a slow movement, though. He is tentative. She has time to draw back. 

Even if they are wed, she will not be the Sheriff’s gift. 

“Marian, please,” Guy says. “Please.” His voice sharpens, but not in anger. What is she to call it? He looks quickly at his master again, and swallows. “The Sheriff expects us to leave together,” he says, “He — he told me so earlier. Before you came.” 

She offers her hand. It is the smallest possible gesture, done in silence. Now it’s too late to pray, and only endurance remains. One sort, or another. 

Oh, Guy’s skin is chilly, and he can’t hold her hand still in his. As they walk away from the altar, his hand trembles. 

_I have pledged my heart:_

He holds up his head, straight and still, while the priest intones. Is it holy matrimony if he cannot hear the nuptial mass? The pulse in his head beats loudly. He is afraid to drop the ring, afraid to swoon. What if he should burst out weeping and kneel, and press his face into Marian’s skirts. Would she forgive him, then? He thinks of himself being driven out of the chapel at sword-point, and the Sheriff looking for someone to take his place. Would the Sheriff marry her himself? He holds out the ring in his cold fingers and she takes it from him. At the last moment he doesn’t want to relinquish it: it is his mother’s ring. His throat is tight with grief. How will she find him. How will she know that he remembers her soft hands, and the movement of her silks, and her voice like a bell? 

Yet he lets it go, of course. He watches Marian put it on her pretty finger. She never raises her head, but keeps it bowed. What a grave look she has. And he hears the mass ripple to its end. He begs her to let him take her hand, and at last she grants it. They are being watched, like a new pair of lovebirds in one of the wrought cages Vaisey keeps in his private chamber. Guy can’t still the tremor in his hand as they walk down the aisle towards the door of the chapel, and he sees her turn her head to look at him. Vaisey has preceded them: there he is, waiting. 

“Ah,” he says, “At long last, it’s all — put to bed.” He smiles at them: the smile for Marian is definitely cruel, but Guy’s is almost kind. Perhaps not quite. “The wedding breakfast awaits, Guy, come along. We haven’t got all day, there are Outlaws to catch, you know — chop chop.” He pats Guy’s cheek affectionately. 

They follow him, hand in hand. Marian’s not sure if she is frightened, or why she should be. Surely the terrible thing has happened, now? Yet they are no longer clasping hands in the cold formality that joined them. Someone is afraid, and it cannot be Guy, for the Sheriff is in a congenial mood today, and after all, he is rewarding Guy, by making this match. He must be pleased with him. 

The wedding breakfast is sparse, and that gratifies both of them. Marian is exhausted and Guy still too nervous to eat with any pleasure. He tries to relieve Marian of the burden of talking to the Sheriff, with all the sharp little barbs, and buried traps, that any such conversation entails. He would not see Marian humiliated. Already she is pale. It is sickening to think she fears him so: it turns his stomach. 

Vaisey is content enough to make Guy wince and flush. “When we were in France,” he begins, and it’s the cue for a reminiscence which — though unflattering and extensive — could, Guy knows, have been made far more cruel. _Yes, I fell off my horse, just like that_ , he thinks. _Yes, the count laughed himself silly over it. You didn’t think it was so funny at the time, to go by my bruises._

He watches Vaisey drain his cup; wipe his lips. It is over. “You can show Lady Marian to her new apartments,” he says, smiling at Guy like a father with a small reluctant son. “But that’s all, no marriage bed, no country matters. Back here straight away — we’ve got business to attend to. Money won’t count itself, will it?”

And they’re outside in the passage, the grey stony gloom of it. He follows Marian, her footsteps passing ahead of him quickly and lightly. There is no need to show her the way. She doesn’t speak to him and he’s not sure what to say to her, whether to say that he won’t hurt her, that she is safe. It seems boorish even to speak of it and his heart recoils. He wants to say he has a sister, that they can lie together in his chambers as brother and sister, if she will. His throat aches at the thought of it: that she will never kiss him, never hold him in her arms, never let him lie with her. Yet her pallor must be fear. He cannot bear that she cringe before him, believing he will force her. The thought of it makes his gorge rise and he swallows hard, feeling sweaty and sickened. The staircase swims under his feet. It’s not far to his chamber but for a moment he thinks he will have to sit and collect himself. No, he cannot. Not before Marian, and have her despise him. 

She stops outside his door. “This is your room, Sir Guy, isn’t it?” She has turned to look back at him, and he feels she must see his damp brow, his shaking hands. 

“Yes,” he says. His voice comes out sounding odd and he clears his throat. “Marian — come in. I’m sorry it’s not more — more suitable.” He opens the door for her and stands aside. 

Marian sees a chamber less finely appointed than her own. The bones of a castle are never gentle, and she has dressed her chamber and her father’s with a few things salvaged from the flames of Knighton, and others given. It isn’t easy, to accept such things. _I’m not used to owing favours_ , she often thought. _I prefer to give._

All the same, she has learnt to accept what she is given, and to speak a graceful thanks. She is a poor girl now, but she never doubted that Robin would take her without any great wealth of household goods, with the smallest dowry on this earth — _oh Robin, Robin_ — 

She crushes the tears in her throat like a stinging insect. Begone. Marian shows no weakness. She concentrates on surveying the chamber, this place where Guy sleeps and where she must sleep too. Where he will take her to his bed. 

It is but a small bed, less in size than her own handsome one. There is nothing wrong with the chamber: it is not dirty or close; it is well-lit; it has all the necessities of existence, and a scattering of weapons, armour and black clothing besides, which seems to be all that Guy has added to it. Does he have nothing else? But perhaps all of his belongings are at Locksley, and this is no more than a room to sleep in. 

She turns to look for him, and finds him still beside the doorway. He is touching the door as if it anchors him and she thinks how nervous he looks. _Why, he might be the bride_ , she thinks, almost ready to laugh. Guy is no maiden-man, she knows that; he ill-used that poor girl, Annie, did he not? And left her little babe in the woods to die. They are not pleasant thoughts and she knows her face must have darkened when she sees Guy bite his lip. 

“Marian,” he says, and then stops. He looks down at the floor, then up at her for a fleeting moment, and she sees that a flush is spreading on his cheekbones. He can’t keep her gaze and his eyes fall away from her. He says her name again, like a ripple of water. “Marian, I — what the Sheriff said. We won’t — we don’t have to — lie together. Tonight, I mean. You hate me for this, and I can’t change that. But I won’t dishonour you, or — or myself, by taking my — my rights, not by force.” He looks up again and meets her eyes, and she sees that his are brilliantly blue. “I didn’t ask him for this, you must believe me.” His words are quick, breathless. “I wanted to — to win your love. Not like this—”

Marian has no time to answer him, for he breaks off and spins out into the stone passage. She hears him walking away. His footsteps, his clinking spurs, his fast breath. She is less angry with him than she was, but it is not because of his words. She’d like to believe them, but can she trust him? No. 

It’s because of the plain chamber that her anger has weakened a little. And she doesn’t understand it, for after all she was going to be married to Robin, and he lives in Sherwood where there are no walls, no hearths, no bedsteads. Her heart is in the greenwood, as it has ever been. _I despise Guy_ , she thinks. _I despise him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vaisey's coercion and abuse of Guy is expounded more fully in my story, "One Art", but please be sure to read the warnings.


End file.
